Perhaps one of Clint Eastwood’s best films, Gran Torino will make you laugh, cry and respect the great actor/director Clint Eastwood as perhaps one of best filmmakers of our times. I loved this film so much I have already seen it four times, twice in the theater and twice on DVD.

Perhaps one of Clint Eastwood’s best films, Gran Torino will make you laugh, cry and respect the great actor/director Clint Eastwood as perhaps one of best filmmakers of our times. I loved this film so much I have already seen it four times, twice in the theater and twice on DVD.

Clint Eastwood is Walt Kowalski, a retired Korean War vet whose once all-white working-class Detroit neighborhood has become filled with Hmong immigrants. His family cares more about their inheritance than him after his beloved wife has passed away.

With no one but his dog Daisy, Walt spends his days gazing out at his changing neighborhood, muttering racial epithets and washing his beloved Gran Torino.

Clint Eastwood gives an utterly fantastic turn in what has been hinted to be his final performance. He is so believable in the role and also directs the film with such experienced passion that you have to be totally absorbed into the film.

The character of Walt Kowalski is almost a collection of previous characters Eastwood has portrayed. He is reminiscent of Dirty Harry, his cowboy with no name, the sergeant from Heartbreak Ridge as well as many other characters he has portrayed over his illustrious career.

Gran Torino is a great film that is both entertaining and a fantastic legacy to a great actor, director and filmmaker. I highly recommend seeing this film.

Friday the 13th

To celebrate the “rebooting” of the Friday the 13th franchise and the upcoming 30th anniversary of the original Friday the 13th film, I made some toast. Then I stared at some cardboard for a few hours and I took a nap. Unfortunately, all good celebrations must come to an end and I awoke to discover to my horror that I still had not watched the new Friday the 13th film.

I have seen the previous 12 films, which is like watching the same bad movie 12 times. I have never been a fan of the original or sequels, although I am a huge fan of horror films and the slasher genre to which Friday the 13th belongs. Slasher films basically are Three Stooges episodes with blood and decapitations.

To prove my point, here’s a quick quiz where I’ll give three scenarios and the answer is a) a Three Stooges film, b) a slasher film, c) an afternoon with Dick Cheney, or d) all of the above.

1) After a minor altercation, a “freak accident” causes one man’s head to get pushed into the blades of a buzz saw for several minutes.

2) While in the woods, one man “accidentally” shoots another man with a shotgun.

3) While presumably fixing something, one man “accidentally” smashes another man repeatedly in the head with a hammer.

If you guessed (d), you’re wrong! The correct answer for all three scenarios is (c). The Stooges and slashers both make sure their hunting buddies are safely out of range before pulling a trigger, and stringently follow proper power tool safety guidelines and protocols.

Just kidding, only 2 would be (c). 1, 2 and 3 are scenarios that have occurred in both Stooge and slasher films. Perhaps the appeal of the latter is the over-the-top Three-Stooges-like violence. The villains are basically Moe Howard on a bad day.

So if slasher films are simply Three Stooges films with gore, then the Friday the 13th films are like watching a Curly Joe Three Stooges episode. I’ll watch it if there is absolutely nothing else on, but I would really prefer to see a Curly Stooge episode. Even a Shemp or a Joe episode is preferable to a Curly Joe one.

So having gone around the barn 12 times to get to the well and, having established that Friday the 13th’s baddie Jason Voorhees is the Curly Joe of slasher film villains, I get to my review of the reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise titled, coincidentally enough, Friday the 13th.

They should have rebooted this film right into the garbage can. The plot is the same as it was in 11 of the 12 previous films. The stupidest teens go into the woods, tell stories about the crazed killer who roams the woods, and then are killed one by one by said killer. The last remaining victims turn tables and kill Jason deader than dead. Or do they?

Jason has come back from death after having a buzz saw grind through his skull. There is some stupid throwaway subplot about a field of pot, a brother searching for his missing sister, and the Crystal Lake police force’s extensive search for the missing teens that turned up neither the giant pot field nor the abandoned camp where Jason lives.

This newest Friday the 13th cost $19 million to make compared to the original’s $550,000 budget (in adjusted prices, maybe $3.5 million to $4 million). It’s unfortunate all that money didn’t go to a screenwriter, because this is perhaps the worst of a bad series.